Killer Mohiuddin may be flown back today

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Convicted killer of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — retired army major AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed — who has been a fugitive with a death sentence on him, may be brought back to Dhaka today to be arrested on arrival.

A home ministry source quoting the foreign ministry said Mohiuddin reached Bangkok Airport yesterday morning and will be flown to Bangladesh today onboard a Thai Airways flight.

But Bangladesh Ambassador in Bangkok Shahed Akhtar told The Daily Star over telephone last night that he is not aware of this.

Meanwhile, another source said Mohiuddin has not yet left Los Angeles.

When contacted, officials of the US Embassy in Dhaka refused to comment on the matter and asked to contact the Bangladesh government.

“He will be arrested on a pending warrant and be sent to jail soon after arrival,” Home Secretary Abdul Karim told The Daily Star yesterday, adding that all necessary directives were given to law enforcement agencies.

Legal experts said after Mohiuddin’s arrest his lawyers may petition for leave to appeal against the High Court verdict upholding his death sentence.

Mohiuddin, who was arrested from his Los Angeles residence on March 13, has already been deported from the US. He reached Bangkok Airport yesterday morning and will be flown to Bangladesh today onboard a flight of Thai Airways.

Home ministry sources said the foreign ministry already informed them about the schedule of Mohiuddin’s arrival at Zia International Airport.

“If the flight schedule remains unchanged, Mohiuddin will arrive in Dhaka at noon tomorrow,” said a high official of the home ministry yesterday.

Earlier in the day, the home ministry alerted the officials concerned at the airport and asked them to take all necessary measures.

Mohiuddin, who along with some other disgruntled army officers had assassinated Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family in a coup d’état on August 15, 1975, left the country soon after Awami League (AL) had come to power in 1996.

Led by Sheikh Hasina, one of Bangabandhu’s two surviving daughters, the erstwhile AL government took initiatives to extradite the killers, but could not finish the job during its tenure. The process to bring them back froze after the BNP-led four-party alliance formed a new government in 2001.

Mohiuddin was tried in absentia by a trial court and two years later, along with some other ex-army personnel, was convicted of assassinating the country’s founding father.

He has been sought by the Bangladesh government since the court on November 8, 1998 sentenced him and 14 other former and dismissed army men to death for the killings.

He was also sentenced to life in prison for aiding and abetting the killings of four other national leaders on November 3, 1975.

The verdict came 23 years after Bangabandhu had been brutally murdered along with 26 others including his wife, three sons, two daughters-in-law, his brother, close relatives, political associates and his security men in a pre-dawn attack.

Mohiuddin fled to the US on a visitor’s visa and applied for permanent residency. But he was ordered to return to Bangladesh to face the criminal charges.

The High Court on April 30, 2001 upheld the death sentences of 12 including Maj (retd) Mohiuddin among the convicted 14. Only four of the condemned 12 — Lt Col Syed Farooq Rehman, Lt Col Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Lt Col Mohiuddin, and Maj Bazlul Huda have been behind bars so far.

Among the rest, one died while six others are believed to be hiding in various countries including the US, Canada, and Libya.

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